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Free-Lance Textile Design in the 1930s: An Improving Prospect? Author(s): Christine Boydell Source: Journal of Design History, Vol. 8, No. 1 (1995), pp. 27-42Published by: on behalf of Oxford University Press Design History SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1315908Accessed: 15-03-2016 14:46 UTC

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Christine Boydell

Free-lance Textile Design in the 1930s:

An Improving Prospect?

In December 1931 Warner & Sons produced their

first hand-screen printed textile-'Shrubbery' [l].

The design had been purchased from Miss V. Muller

for ?7. This apparently minor historical moment

marks the beginning of a development in both the

process of printing and the source of designs for

textiles. These developments originated in a relat-

ively small sector of the textile industry between

1931 and 1939, but had a wider application after the

war. Warners' decision to introduce a new process,

with the design provided by a free-lancer, is signi-

ficant for the history of textiles. Hand-screen print-

ing was introduced not by the industry as a whole

but by a small number of firms who were actively

interested in improving design as suggested by con-

temporary design reformers. These firms added

hand-screen printing to the more established print-

ing techniques and purchased an increasing number

of designs from free-lance designers during the

1930s.

This article will describe and account for the

changes in the practice of purchasing designs in the

1930s, which coincided with the introduction of

hand-screen printing. Additionally, an examination

will be made of how these developments were per-

ceived by contemporary commentators who, while

aware that innovations in production and sources of

design were taking place, were unable adequately to

describe or account for them. In fact, some of the

contemporary responses are contradictory. The con-

tradiction centres around the question of to what

extent the changes in the way textiles were designed

represented a significant development in the status

of the textile designer, or simply a change in working

practices brought about by the application of a new

process. This paper will clarify and comment on the

contradictions by firstly looking at the sources for

designs used by textile companies. It will also

describe changes in the relationship between manu-

facturers and designers during the decade. An

examination will be made of the place of hand-screen

printing in relation to other techniques used for the

production of fabrics, both printed and woven.

Company records suggest that a large proportion of

designs for hand-screen printed fabrics were pur-

chased from women free-lancers; within the wider

context of free-lance design the significance of this

factor will be evaluated. In 1935 R. D. Simpson,

design director at Morton Sundour, concluded that

recent developments in the textile industry repre-

sented 'an improving prospect' for the designer of

textiles-but how accurate is his observation?'

Hand-screen Printing

Experimental forms of hand-screen printing were

being developed at the beginning of the century by

individuals such as Mariano Fortuny. However, the

process was not used commercially until 1926 when

it was adopted by a number of textile companies in

France. The hand-screen technique was the first

major new development in textile printing since the

invention of mechanized roller printing at the end of

the eighteenth century. It was one of three methods

of printing used to apply pattern to fabric used by

the textile industry in the 1930os; the others were

hand-block and machine-roller printing. Hand-block

printing had a limited application due to its slowness

and cost, although it was used by some manu-

facturers to print short runs or experimental designs.

More commonly used was the mechanized roller

printer. In this process the design was engraved on

copper rollers, with one roller used for each colour in

the design and the full width of fabric could be

printed. The method was ideal for producing large

quantities of a particular design-20,000 yards of

fabric using eight colours could be printed in one day

of production.2 The main disadvantage of roller

printing was the large yardage required to cover the

cost of engraving the copper rollers,3 and a large

capital outlay was needed to cover the initial expense

Journal of Design History Vol. 8 No. 1 ? 1995 The Design History Society 27



.P 1 'Shrubbery' by Miss V. Muller, the

L:: ;,~:... .........first design to be hand-screen printed

~ . 4F ...... . . . . by Warner & Sons, 1931

w@ ,' ,.:~

~w.

.- - ----g ---- =.

of buying machinery. Hand-screen printing, a

development of stencilling, had several advantages

over these two techniques. It was much quicker than

hand-block printing and compared to the machine

roller technique required little initial outlay, and

relatively short lengths of fabric could be produced

more economically. It was also possible by this

method to print on textured fabric and, although it

was not possible to reproduce the fine lines that

could be achieved by other methods, the technique

had the advantage of the possibility of the reproduc-

tion of brushwork, or dappled and etched effects.

In Britain in the early 1930S a small number of

firms began to produce fabric with designs applied

by means of hand-screen printing [2]. For example,

Warner & Sons and Morton Sundour's Edinburgh

28 Christine Boydell



, i2 Hand-screen printing at Langley,

? Macclesfield

A i~

4A

-4..

Weavers were both early exponents of this process.

Often the firms that introduced this technique into

production were companies already using the other

hand process, block printing. The 1930S marked a

period of familiarization and experimentation with

hand-screen printing; however, it was not widely

adopted until mechanized methods of screen print-

ing were developed in the 1950S and i96os. Initially

the employment of hand-screen printing was limited

to the production of short runs or experimental

modern designs, and was considered to be an alter-

native method to hand-block printing. The early

designs differed little from those which were printed

by block. However, by the middle of the decade the

full potential of the technique could be seen in a

number of designs produced by well-known firms

such as Warners and smaller companies like Allan

Walton Textiles.

Hand-screen printing was developed by textile

companies for a number of reasons. In addition to

the technical and artistic advantages it held over

other processes, it provided the possibility of

relatively low-priced experimentation. As a con-

sequence of low investment costs larger numbers of

designs could be printed to cater for a variety of

tastes and could be used as a means of responding

rapidly to calls for design reform. Although during

the decade under discussion one cannot refer to

hand-screen printing as an industry-wide practice,

its small-scale adoption by a number of firms is

significant in the relationship this had to both

stylistic developments in design and, more signifi-

cantly for this paper, the changing practices of some

companies in obtaining designs from outside their

own studios.

Sources of Designs

Furnishing textiles are items within an interior

scheme which are most frequently replaced as they

provide a relatively cheap means of creating a new

look for a room. Consequently the textile industry

has always been a voracious consumer of designs

from a variety of sources and, according to Captain

W. Turnbull (joint Managing Director of the Lan-

cashire firm Turnbull & Stockdale Limited) in 1935,

the textile sector used more designs than any other

industry.4 The industry did not rely on just one

source for these designs, and it is clear that different

practices operated for the acquisition of designs for

woven and printed textiles. These variable practices

have a direct relationship to the place of free-lance

designers within the industry.

Manufacturers obtained designs for textiles from a

number of sources: some came from their own

design studios, some from British and Continental

commercial design studios, and some from free-

lance designers. In his article Turnbull described the

distribution of sources as: '42% from studio staff of

textile works, 13% from English commercial studios,

42% from the Continent, and 3% from free lance

designers'.5 The statistics Turnbull cites could well

Free-lance Textile Design in the 19305 29



be the same as those reported by the British Institute

of Industrial Art eight years before,6 but they

indicate the small proportion of designs originating

from free-lance designers compared to factory and

commercial studios. However, Nikolaus Pevsner,

relying on the same figures as Turnbull, regarded

this small input from free-lancers as artistically

significant.7 The 42 per cent of designs emanating

from factory studios were produced by a small

number of designers. At Warner & Sons during the

1920S and 1930S there were on average five em-

ployees working in the studio, two as designers, the

others as assistants. Assistants occasionally pro-

duced designs, but their more usual tasks included

colouring designs, adapting existing designs or

redrawing designs bought from free-lancers and

commercial studios [31. Examination of practices at

other companies shows studios with similiar num-

bers of design staff.8

In his investigation into the designer in industry

which appeared in Architectural Review in 1936 and

was reproduced in the book Enquiry into Industrial

Art in England the following year, Pevsner asked the

three most progressive textile manufacturers what

was the ratio of factory studio-produced designs to

designs purchased from outside sources. The answer

was as follows:

the first, some years 50 per cent. to 50 per cent., the

second, in prints 40 per cent. to 60 per cent., in weaves 95

per cent. to 5 per cent.; the third, in prints the majority

bought, in weaves the majority worked out between

director and manager.9

The major difference between the number of designs

for wovens and prints purchased from outside the

manufacturer's studio is significant. It was much

more common for designs for prints to be purchased

from a commercial studio or from a free-lance

L -, .................-.2 .:; ....." '

r~j

.... ... " : ...

:; . U

... ..... ? " '"..

3 The design studio at Warner & Sons, Braintree, Essex, 1935




designer as well as being produced in-house, while

designs for woven fabrics were most often com-

pleted in the factory studio. The main reason for this

was regarded as technical. It was possible for most

designers with some training in pattern-making to

create designs for printed fabrics, since the only

specialist knowledge needed was the ability to be

able to put a design into repeat and to be aware of

the limitations and possibilities of the various print-

ing methods available. The question of whether a

designer required some technical knowledge in order

to design weaves was hotly debated during the

period. Most training in wovens was either in the

form of specialist technical education provided for

individuals already working in the textile industry or

through craft classes in hand-weaving techniques

and design. There were two schools of thought

regarding the participation of free-lance designers in

the production of woven fabrics from both com-

mentators and manufacturers. On the one hand it

was felt that free-lance designers should steer well

clear of wovens, as their lack of knowledge of the

technical aspects of the medium usually resulted in

poor designs.10 Others believed that with the right

kind of collaboration between the designer and

technician any problem could be overcome.11 How-

ever, it was the former view that seemed to pre-

dominate during the 1930s. Nikolaus Pevsner

commented on the problem:

The works' designer, who can keep in close contact with

the technicians and workers, is the right man for the

creation of new weaves; the outside artist, who is

supposed to be more imaginative or more facile, because

he is not restricted by the narrow life of a mill, is more

appropriately employed for printed patterns.12

Ernest Goodale, Managing Director of Warner &

Sons and President of the Federation of British

Furnishing Textile Manufacturers, explained the

practice at his own company:

Woven design is produced entirely by members of the

production staff, but for prints the studios are supple-

mented from outside sources, both English and French.13

At Morton Sundour too, the majority of designs for

weaves were produced in the works' own studios,

although a small number of designs came from free-

lance designers or commercial studios. Maurice Rena

recorded comments of textile manufacturers who

explained their problems in finding suitable designs

from outside the mill studio:

They say they are on the look-out for the best artistic work

for their high-class materials, but 'find difficulty in getting

the right type of designs, for as they can see there is not a

single free-lance artist-designer in England who suffici-

ently understands the technicalities of machine weaving.'4

Thus, textile companies usually had most woven and

some printed designs produced by in-house de-

signers, working full-time in the factory studio with

many attending part-time courses at local technical

schools. Designs for prints were also purchased from

commercial studios, with a small number coming

from free-lance designers. Furthermore, increasingly

during the 1930S, the greater number of designs

from these free-lancers were for hand-screen printed

fabrics.

Free-lance Designers

There were a number of factors which had an impact

on raising the profile of the free-lance designer

during the 1930os. These included the influence of

design reform, the marketing value of using designer

names, increased opportunities for artistic experi-

mentation provided by hand-screen printing, along

with lower design costs and protectionist legislation.

The artistic climate of the early 1930os, with initiatives

from the design establishment, stimulated manu-

facturers in many areas to buy work from inde-

pendent designers. Some manufacturers saw the

drawbacks of only employing staff designers. Keith

Murray was of the opinion that although the staff

designer (usually male) was an important com-

ponent of the company:

he spends his life in one type of work, and probably in one

neighbourhood, he tends to become in the course of time

rather absorbed in routine and out of touch with outside

influences. But he is a valuable man and the mainstay in

the production side of his factory.15

It was also felt that there was a danger of a lack of

variety if a company relied solely on its staff desig-

ners, resulting in a 'factory studio style'.16

Whilst free-lance designers had been an important

component of the French textile industry since the

1920s, perhaps as a consequence of the earlier adop-

tion of hand-screen printing there, they only began

Free-lance Textile Design in the 1930S 31



to have an impact in Britain in the early 1930os. Dur-

ing the 19205 the significance of France in textile

design could be seen in the number of designs

bought by the British textile industry from French

agents and studios. For example, the Libert studio of

Paris regularly sold designs to Sandersons, G. P. &

J. Baker, and Warner & Sons. Not all designs bought

from France were necessarily made by French

designers, but such was the reputation of the French

that in 1929 the Board of Education in its pamphlet

Design and the Cotton Industry noted:

There is evidence that the free-lance artist is more likely to

get his designs placed if he commissions a French agent

than if he tries to place them himself.17

The Board also felt that improved public taste was in

part responsible for increased demand and urged

industry to pay more attention to design:

As a result of the undoubted rise in the general level of

taste in this and other countries, the demand for good

design is increasing ... It is, therefore, vitally important

that effective means shall be found to draw into the service

of the industry men and women of trained artistic ability.

This is being done by other industries, notably those in the

Potteries, Birmingham and Leicester, and the cotton

industry cannot afford to remain indifferent.18

A large proportion of the textile designs bought

from free-lancers were produced using the hand-

screen printing process and this lent itself to designs

produced by fine artists many of whom sold work to

the textile industry during the 1930s. The economic

depression of the late 1920S and early 1930S meant

that many individuals including painters, commer-

cial artists, and architects were struggling to con-

tinue to make a living in their chosen professions.

The possibility of producing designs for textile com-

panies using the screen printing process was a viable

one for artists. The Society of Industrial Artists,

founded in 1930, was among a number of organiza-

tions active in encouraging their participation in

industry.

Many fine artists designed textiles on a free-lance

basis for some of the more progressive textile manu-

facturers of the day: for example, companies such as

Morton Sundour's Edinburgh Weavers used designs

from Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, and Ashley

Havinden, while Old Bleach Linen bought designs

from Paul Nash and Bernard Adeney. The combina-

tion of the economic climate and the desire by textile

manufacturers to improve their products, as a

response to calls for a marriage between art and

industry (by such bodies as the Council for Art and

Industry and the Design and Industries Association),

led to increasing opportunities for artists.

Manufacturers also began to realize the benefits of

selling textiles using the name of a designer and pro-

moting the textile as analogous to fine art [4]. The

Studio had commented on the emerging practice of

naming designers as early as 1926:

almost for the first time in the history of industrial produc-

tion in this country, the names of the designers, usually so

carefully suppressed, [are] publicly and prominently

associated with the selling of goods.19

And by the mid-193os the designer's name fre-

quently appeared in advertisements for textile

designs [5]. The trend to attribute designs meant that

4 Advertisement for Edinburgh Weavers' 'Magnolia', a hand-

* t ;...... ...

.' l

4 Advertisement for Edinburgh Weavers' 'Magnolia', a hand-

screen printed design by Marion Dorn




Modern Artists design MN

for Old Bleach .... *; ....y L-f !

- w . . .. .? :.i .V . ,,

7 1' V' !" (: PAUL NASH. MARION DORN. NICHOLAS I>

DE N.LAS BERNARD ADEN 'SiS'

4111 111"CIIi Furnishing Fabrics

OLD [L'ACIH LIlEN CO. LT., RANDALSTOWN NORTHERN IRELAND Trde ESqtrcs: Lett HoL 47 C,,h, St. L ndS ..C ',,., N,.,tIO 800

5 Old Bleach Linen advertisement illustrating fabrics designed for the company by Paul Nash, Marion Dorn, Nicholas de Molas, and

Bernard Adeney

even the normally anonymous staff designers began

to be named occasionally as well, and it encouraged

independent artists and designers to consider textiles

as an option now that it enjoyed greater status. The

issue continued to be discussed and in 1938 J. A.

Milne considered the benefits to the industry of

employing artists as designers (although he stressed

they should have some understanding of techno-

logy).20 A good example of technician and artist

working together is evident in the designs produced

by artists for Edinburgh Weavers 'Constructivist

Fabrics' range which appeared in 1937. In 1948 Alec

Hunter of Warners recorded that the employment of

artists continued to be a worthwhile practice and he

highlighted the well-established custom of his com-

pany of purchasing work from artist designers who

were drawing on 'experience from other fields and

inspiration from other sources' which, he con-

sidered, could 'bring refreshment and vitality to the

surface pattern'. Hunter was in agreement with

Milne: that the ideal situation was one in which the

free-lance designer worked in close association with

a sympathetic technician.2'

Another factor which may also have had a signifi-

cant effect on the increase in the number of free-

lance textile designers employed by the industry in

subsequent years was the implementation of tariffs

on the import of various manufactured goods,

including textiles. In order to counter the adverse

trade balance faced by the British economy, Parlia-

ment passed the Abnormal Importations (Customs

Duties) Act in November 1931. Import duties were

then charged on various goods22 until the govern-

ment was able to devise a new tariff policy. In

November and December of the same year, tempor-

ary duties of 50 per cent were imposed on tissues of

wool, linen, jute, and cotton. The import Duties Act

came into operation in March 1932 and imposed a

duty of 10 per cent on any goods not already subject

to duty. Four months later the 10 per cent was

increased to 20 per cent, but the original 50 per cent

duty was then withdrawn, to the dismay of manu-

facturers. However, this high duty had the desired

effect. Ernest Goodale, then President of the Federa-

tion of British Furnishing Fabrics, commented in

1938:




Largely as a result of the anti-dumping duty of 50 per cent

... considerable impetus was given to British industry,

including, in particular, the furnishing fabric industry in

this country. Whereas before buyers automatically turned

to the Continent, they were forced, under this measure, to

turn to their home suppliers, with very encouraging results

on both sides.23

This drop in imports of foreign-finished textiles

which had previously come from Germany, France,

Belgium, and Italy meant that the manufacturer of

furnishing fabrics in Britain was in a position to

produce and sell more goods than previously. This in

turn may have produced a demand for a greater

number of designs. If this were so an immediate

means of filling the demand could have been met by

free-lance designers.

An examination of the comprehensive records of

a company like Warners indicates an increase in the

number of designs bought from free-lance designers

from just nine designs between 1930 and 1933 to

thirty-seven designs between 1934 and 1937.24 This

rise is also indicated in the records of Heal & Sons

which demonstrate that a growing number of

fabrics produced by a variety of companies and sold

in the store were designed by freelancers.25 Evid-

ence of the increase in numbers of individuals

operating as free-lance textile designers is provided

in H. G. Hayes Marshall's book, British Textile

Designers Today, which was published in 1939. The

publication discussed comprehensively the men and

women who were involved in textile design at the

time.26 Hayes Marshall concentrated on free-lance

designers, describing his work as a 'Who's Who' for

the industry and for anyone buying or commission-

ing textile designs. The book dealt mainly with

designers of furnishing textiles, and while its con-

centration was on free-lance designers it also

covered some in-house designers, who had at one

time worked as free-lancers. In addition it included

small studios and partnerships from which the

industry commissioned designs. Hayes Marshall

included an index in which he listed 240 designers,

studios, or partnerships designing textiles. The main

body of the book consisted of an alphabetical collec-

tion of designers, with a short account of the work

of each together with some black and white illustra-

tions of their designs. The publication of British

Textile Designers Today indicates a recognition of the

growing number and importance of free-lance

designers working in the medium of textiles by the

end of the 1930s.

Women Free-lance Designers

In addition to providing evidence that the numbers

of free-lance designers increased during the 1930s,

both records in several company archives and Hayes

Marshall's book indicate that a significant proportion

of free-lance designers were women. There are a

number of reasons why this should have been the

case, and the importance of women's traditional

association with the production of textiles for the

home and their changing practices within the area

must be considered. The relationship of women

designers to general reformist ideas, as well as their

predominance as designers for the hand-screen

printing process is also investigated.

The involvement of male designers in textiles was

as full-time professionals who at the end of the nine-

teenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries

worked from within the industry as staff designers

(for example, Bertrand Whittaker at Warners), as

free-lance designers for a number of firms and in a

variety of media including textiles (for example,

Owen Jones, Lewis F. Day, and C. F. A. Voysey), or

headed their own studios, supplying designs to the

industry (for example, Arthur and Rex Silver).

However, women's involvement was less straight-

forward. Women's relationship to the creative pro-

duction of textiles developed in three distinctive

ways. To begin with, women were involved in the

creation of clothing and embroidery for family

consumption (activities expected of, particularly,

middle-class women for centuries). Women rarely

received any financial reward for such work, items

being regarded for their utility rather than their

exchange value. At the end of the nineteenth

century, when middle-class women began to work in

textiles outside the home, they were involved mainly

in the creative interpretation of the embroidery

designs of men.27 At this time women were begin-

ning to enjoy the benefits of art school training and

by the First World War they were experimenting in

the design and production of hand-printed textiles;

for example, Phyllis Barron and Dorothy Larcher had

attended art school before setting up a business

hand-block printing textiles in 1923. This was the

experience of a number of women, and it marks a




transitional stage from the production of textiles for

the domestic sphere to the sale of fabrics in a

(limited) commercial context. During the 1920os and

1930os a number of these craftswomen abandoned

the production process altogether to concentrate on

design, selling their work to large textile companies;

thus their work was transported from the domestic

sphere or a narrow commercial context to the sphere

of mass production and high-turnover retail.

As well as working as craftswomen, a few ran

their own businesses, or were employed as staff

designers for textile manufacturers, while an increas-

ing number were working as free-lance designers.

Several women were operating as craftswomen,

reflecting the continued interest in craft activity

during the 1920S and early 1930s. Ethel Mairet ran

the hand-weaving workshop 'Gospels' in Ditchling,

Sussex, while others continued to produce hand-

block printed textiles. As well as Barron and Larcher

whose workshop operated until the outbreak of war,

Enid Marx and Joyce Clissold also practised hand-

block printing. Marianne Straub and Theo Moorman

are examples of the small number of women

employed as staff designers by the textile industry.

Straub was head designer for Helios (a subsidiary of

the Lancashire cotton spinning company Barlow &

Jones), and was eventually managing director until

1950 when she joined Warner & Sons.28 Theo

Moorman worked as a staff designer for hand- and

power-loom fabrics at Warner & Sons, being

employed by the company in 1935 to establish an

exclusive hand-weaving department for modern

designs. She worked for the company until the

outbreak of the war in 1939 when she established

herself as a free-lance designer. However, women

employed in this way were the exception rather than

the rule.

A few women ran their own companies, including

Marion Dorn and Eileen Hunter. Eileen Hunter had

no formal artistic training, but began designing

patterns for furnishing fabrics after visiting the

Victoria and Albert Museum in the late 1920s.29 Her

designs were made up of large-scale repeats of

brightly coloured abstract patterns [6]. Hunter did

not produce fabrics herself, but had her designs

printed by others. Her early work was hand-block

printed by Handprints, a company run by Miss

Smithers in Chiswick. Later designs were hand-

block or hand-screen printed for her by Warner &

Sons in the unusually small quantity of three yard

lengths.30 Although Warners had offered to buy her

designs, Hunter preferred to have control of her own

work. She found that the only efficient way of

getting her prints into retail outlets was to set up her

own business, 'Eileen Hunter Fabrics', in 1933. Her

designs appeared at the 1935 Burlington House

British Art in Industry Exhibition, and were used in

the Paddington Hotel, London and the Queens Hotel

Birmingham. She employed a salesman to travel

around the country and promote her designs, ran her

_____________________________________________MN___ 6 Eileen Hunter fabrics on display at Henry

: :., . . . ,,~ . ;. ?i. .- ,,,,,,*\. .s.s...... .......... ..... i .... ;er's ..........................n.......................... 6 Emid-l93 s

V T. Bareer's, Nottingham, mid-'1930s

--------- ............ " ................ ...-:- ''''' ' ': X

M M .. .........i --

t,..A

:ii. 1.....'~. ... ..........,I~




own wholesale company from 1933 to 1934, and

exported her fabrics to France, Holland, the USA,

and Canada.31

Like Eileen Hunter, Marion Dorn set up her own

limited company in 1934. She had begun her career

as a craftswoman-designing, making, and selling

her own batik furnishing fabrics. By 1926 she had

diversified into rug design but at this point she

moved away from craft activity and initially commis-

sioned other craftswomen to produce rugs to her

designs and later she approached manufacturers

such as Wilton Royal. This pattern of development

was also evident in her designs for furnishing fabrics

produced during the 1930s. Dorn either commis-

sioned manufacturers to produce her designs for

both prints and weaves or operated as a free-lance

designer mainly selling print designs to companies

such as Donald Brothers, Edinburgh Weavers, Old

Bleach Linen, and Warner & Sons [7].32

Dorn was amongst a number of women who were

transferring their skills from hand-craft production

to free-lance design for industry during the decade.

The greater freedom of designing on a free-lance

basis, along with the more socially acceptable idea of

women working from the home or private studio,

rather than being employed in a male-dominated

mill studio, provided women with the opportunity to

move away from craftwork into the more flexible

area of free-lance designs for large textile manu-

facturers. Their increased participation was also

aided by the factors which influenced the general

increase in free-lancers already indicated.

Hayes Marshall's British Textile Designers Today

provides some information on the number of women

designers and the kind of work they were producing.

In his index of 240 designers, 103 names are identifi-

able as those of women.33 Included in the more

detailed section are 49 male and 30 female designers.

Of the male designers discussed only 29 of the 49

worked as free-lance designers. Of the 30 women, 25

fit into the category of free-lance designers of

furnishing fabrics (the others either concentrated on

embroidery or cannot be classed as free-lance

designers). Of the 25 women who were working as

free-lance designers, 21 had some kind of art school

training-like many of the male designers included,

the majority of these are listed as having a back-

ground in painting. Evidence analysed from a study

of the archives of several textile companies of the

time has shown that more women than ever were

being employed on this basis.34 Surviving material at

Warner Fabrics Limited (formerly Warner & Sons), a

company which saw a significant increase in the

number of designs bought from free-lancers, pro-

vides detailed information on the source and method

of production of printed textiles as well as where the

design originated. The company's design record

books provide valuable information as to the type of

print designs bought from male and female desig-

ners (see Tables X and 2).35 The most significant

7 Fabrics by Warner & Sons (left to right):

'Bamboo Grass' by Herbert Woodman (he

worked in the Warners' design studio);

'Anchor' by Marion Dorn; 'Waltham' by Rex

Silver (he headed the Silver Studio, a

successful commercial design company);

'Acorn and Oakleaf' and 'Falling Leaf' both

by Marion Dorn; the latter was produced as a

special for Gordon Russell Limited (rather

than the usual flat fee for free-lance designs,

Dorn received a 3d. royalty for every yard of

these fabrics sold)

36Christine Boydell



Table 1 Female Free-lancers: Numbers of Designs Purchased by Warner & Sons

between 1929 and 1940

Name Screen Print Block Print Roller Print Total

L. C. Aldred 5 5

Miss Aufseeser 2 1 3

Miss Bochal (Vienna) 1 1

J. Cheeseman 2 2

Miss Cobham 1 1

Eva Crofts 1 1 2

Mrs Davis 2 2

Marion Dorn 12 3 15

Olga Gemes 1 1

Mrs Green 3 3

Miss S. J. Haslop 1 1

Mrs Hind 1 1

Mrs Holmlea 1 1

Margaret Jones 1 1

Marianne Mahler 1 1

Miss E. Marsh 2 2

Mrs Millar 1 1 2

Mrs V. Mollar 1 1

Riette Sturge Moore 1 1

Maureen Nicholson 1 1

Mrs M. R. R. Robertson 2 2

Margaret Simeon 1 1

Alice H. Umpleby 1 1

Miss Wakeham 1 1

Sheila Walsh 2

Totals 36 10 8 52

Table 2 Male Free-lancers: Numbers of Designs Purchased by Warner & Sons between

1929 and 1940

Name Screen Print Block Print Roller Print Total

Ernst Aufseeser 2 3 1 6

Henry Butter l 1

E. H. Cristelle 1 1

Doran 1 3 7 11

Griffiths 2 2

Forrer 1 1

R. Kramer 1 1

Reynolds 2 2

Silas 1 1 2

P. C. Stockford 1 1

Hans Tisdall 1 1

Wheelwright 6 4 lo

Geo H. Willis 4 4

P. E. Willis 1 1

Totals 12 10 22 44




information that can be gleaned from a study of

these records is the large number of designs for

hand-screen prints bought from women. Between

1929 and 1940 the company bought thirty-six

designs from seventeen different women; this com-

pares with just twelve designs for screen prints from

six male designers. However, if one studies the

figures for roller prints one sees male designers pre-

dominating, twenty-two designs being bought from

nine male designers, compared with eight designs

purchased from five women. The figures for designs

for hand-block printed textiles are more equitable,

ten designs by five male designers compared to ten

designs by seven different female designers. It is

likely that the choice of technique to be used to print

a particular design was left to the manufacturer, who

would receive designs from an individual and then

decide on the most suitable technique. This would

depend not only on the style of the design but, more

importantly, on the quantities of anticipated sales.

The screen printing technique was probably reserved

for patterns which were more experimental in nature

and therefore likely to appeal to a more limited

market.

The disparity between the number of hand-screen

print and roller print designs from men and women

is not easy to explain; the records of most manu-

facturers do not usually specify what technique was

employed to print each design. The exception to this

is found in the records of Warner & Sons, where

roller printed designs were usually bought from

well-established male professional designers or

studios. This was probably due to the nature of the

technique, for in order to cover the expensive cost of

having the rollers engraved, a large quantity of fabric

had to be printed and sold. It would seem sensible

therefore that the company should choose designs

which they felt confident would sell well, and there-

fore they bought them from tried and tested

designers and studios. The prices which manu-

facturers paid for roller printed designs were higher

than for those which were hand-screen printed: on

average in the mid-193os a design which was roller

printed would cost between 10 and 18 guineas, while

for a hand-screen print the price would drop to

between 7 and 12 guineas.36 Again, this disparity

was probably due to the larger print run and

expected sales of a design which had been roller

printed. In terms of payments made for designs there

seems to be no difference between the prices men

and women were paid. A study of records of pay-

ments to designers from the companies examined

indicates that it was the well-established designers

and studios who seemed to enjoy higher prices for

their designs; groups such as the Libert Studio in

Paris and the Haward and Silver Studios in England,

and designers such as J. S. Wheelwright were being

paid top prices for their work. Significantly, these

studios were generally owned and run by men.

It seems that women only made an impact as

designers of textiles for industry from about 1934.

Since they were generally new to free-lance work it

is likely that the majority of their designs were

chosen to be screen printed, a technique that tended

to be used for short runs of fabric, therefore mini-

mizing the manufacturer's risk when using the work

of often unfamiliar designers. Also, since the process

was replacing hand-block printing, many women

who had practical experience of this method would

already possess a basic knowledge of the require-

ments of surface pattern design. It is no coincidence,

therefore, that once hand-screen printing had been

established as a significant element in the production

of experimental work by some manufacturers,

designs by free-lance women were considered suit-

able for this production process.

There were several women free-lance textile

designers whose names regularly appear in both the

textile company records and in the art and design

press of the day. An example was Mea Angerer, who

had trained in Vienna with Josef Hoffmann and had

several designs produced by the Wiener Werkstatte.

She came to England in 1928 where she worked as a

staff designer for Sandersons' Eton Rural Fabrics for

eighteen months, then moved on to work as a free-

lance designer for G. P. & J. Baker, Warner & Sons,

and Donald Brothers [8]. Anne Holmlea's designs

were bought by several textile companies including

G. P. & J. Baker, Turnbull & Stockdale, and Warners.

The list of women working in this way is long, but

some of the names appearing more frequently

include Eva Aufseeser, Louise Aldred [9], Josephine

Cheeseman, Marianne Mahler, Sheila Walsh, Eva

Crofts, Riette Sturge Moore, and Margaret Simeon.

The work of these women has yet to be studied in

any detail.

Although many women were working as textile

designers in the 1930s, most of the best-known




'" ' _.

8 'Robsart', a printed crash linen by Mea Angerer for Donald

Brothers

names associated with the discipline at the time were

men. Female textile designers tended to work

exclusively in textiles, whereas many of the men who

worked within the disciplines were involved in other

areas of art and design, such as painting, archi-

tecture, or commercial design. Only a limited

number, of whom Ronald Grierson is an example,

worked exclusively in textile design; most were

better known as painters (for example, Ben Nichol-

son and Paul Nash), or as commercial artists (for

example, Ashley Havinden). For such men textile

design was regarded as a secondary interest. Antony

Hunt interviewed seven textile designers for an

article in 1938 and had this to say of Havinden,

Ashley does not regard his fabric and rug design as work.

They are the result of play rather than work in the sense

that he is independent of their earning capacity.37

- : !::.e.' 5-M i ? : r: ...........

9 'Hermes', a printed satin by Louise Aldred for Warner & Sons,

1936. The textile used four screens and Aldred was paid

10 guineas for the design

Unlike their female contemporaries these male

designers gained free-lance work in textiles on the

strength of their more 'serious' work in the highly

valued areas mentioned above. They were often

approached by textile manufacturers who saw the

potential of employing a famous person from the

world of fine art. Other male textile designers were

primarily involved in textiles on the manufacturing

side. (Allan Walton and William Foxton are among a

number who headed their own companies.)

Conclusions

In spite of what seemed to be significant propaganda

to encourage the use of free-lance designers from

organizations such as the Council of Art and Indus-

try, the Design and Industries Association, and the




Society of Industrial Artists, and from individuals

such as Nikolaus Pevsner and Keith Murray, some

words of caution were voiced. As joint Managing

Director of the Lancashire company Turnbull &

Stockdale and a member of the Committee on the

Training of Designers, W. Turnbull offered the

following warning in 1935:

As a last resort, there remains free-lance designing. In my

opinion, this should only be undertaken as a means to an

end-the end being to find out the requirements of the

trade with a view to getting into a studio if and when the

opportunity offers. Only if one has the definite creative

urge and nothing else will satisfy, should one join the

'free-lancers' for their's is one of the most heartbreaking

jobs under the sun. Better by far get a teaching post and

write a book than act as an unpaid research worker to the

textile trade! To do stacks and stacks of designs in order to

sell one, and to consign these stacks ultimately to the

flames-can one imagine anything more terrible?38

However, individuals such as R. D. Simpson present

a more positive picture:

Twenty years ago I would have encouraged no one to

specialise in textile design, but at present the prospect

improves steadily. Design for textiles is now recognised to

be of such importance that producers and education

authorities alike are exerting great efforts to interest young

people of culture and education and with artistic feeling to

take up designing for fabrics as a profession.39

Their background and interests may lie at the

heart of Turnbull's and Simpson's views of the free-

lance profession. Turnbull, in a managerial role

within his firm, could be considered to have had a

more realistic view of the designer's prospects than

Simpson, who was more narrowly concerned with

design. Morton Sundour, for whom he was design

director, continued a long tradition of buying designs

from artists and free-lancers.

Textile companies, like Warner & Sons, had a

reputation for producing high-quality fabrics with a

percentage of output being devoted to experimental

and 'modern' designs. Within firms like Warners,

there were frequently individuals who were com-

mitted to design reform. Sir Ernest Goodale was a

member of the Committee of Art and Industry, and

Alec Hunter (Warners' head designer) was a member

of the Society of Industrial Artists. Morton Sundour

included a number of individuals who were acting

in, or sympathetic to, improvements in design and

industry; these included James Morton, R. D. Simp-

son, Alastair Morton (who headed the company's

subsidiary, Edinburgh Weavers), and Anthony Hunt

who acted as buyer for Edinburgh Weavers and

wrote extensively on textile design. It was, therefore,

no surprise that such companies would wish to

utilize hand-screen printing and encourage free-

lancers, in particular artists, to provide designs for

them. In this way manufacturers could produce a

wide range of designs more economically than pre-

viously. With relatively little investment they could

exploit the aesthetic possibilities associated with the

new process and promote designs purchased from

artist designers, which could provide them with

valuable publicity.

The records of the textile companies studied

indicate that in the 1930os, unlike previous decades,

there were probably as many women designing

textiles as there were men, but women's participa-

tion differed in several crucial ways which have con-

sequently had a bearing on the level of recognition

they have received. Firstly, rather than being

involved in the industry from within, as staff

designers, it was more common for women to work

as free-lance designers for several companies at a

time. If they worked within the commercial design

studio system they tended to remain anonymous,

while it was usually the male head of the studio who

was likely to be the individual who received any

credit. For example, the products emanating from

the studio of J. S. Wheelwright are always credited to

him. Women who worked as free-lancers had to

compete with male designers who had already

gained recognition in other disciplines; it was usually

these men that the journalists of the time (in such

publications as The Studio and Architectural Review)

concentrated on in their discussion of progressive

textile design. Despite the opportunities provided by

the development of the hand-screen printing pro-

cess, women free-lance designers were still earning

less than their male counterparts. The industry never

outlined a policy as such, to pay less for the work of

female designers. However, as women dominated

the designs for hand-screen printing textiles (which

afforded lower fees than for roller print design) they

earned less than male designers who dominated the

production of designs for the roller printing machine.

Despite these differences, free-lance design provided

a number of women, many of whom had been




trained as painters, with the opportunity to make a

living through their creative talents. In many cases

they could do this from their homes and thus avoid

the less flexible and male-dominated commercial and

factory studio.

The practice of buying a small percentage of pat-

terns for prints of contemporary design from outside

the factory studio had become established practice

by the end of the 1930s. By the 1950S the textile

industry continued to produce its own designs for

weaves; however, in prints the situation had

changed dramatically, as Michael Farr pointed out in

his 1955 survey Design in British Industry:

In all the firms I visited the majority of the designs have

been purchased from free-lance and commercial designers.

Nevertheless, most firms maintain studios of their own,

not only for creating new work, but for adapting the

designs bought from outside artists.4?

While research is required to establish the relative

proportions of women operating as free-lance textile

designers in the post-war period, an examination of

the current situation in textile company studios illus-

trates the striking change in the gender distribution

of designers. The studios of most textile companies

now tend to be dominated by female designers. For

example, at Warner Fabrics all the design staff in

the company's studio are women.41 Textile com-

panies continue to purchase contemporary designs

from outside sources, the majority of these coming

from free-lance designers, with the bulk of printed

designs now produced by a mechanized screen

process.

The extent to which the textile industry as a whole

was affected by the campaigns of design reformers

has yet to receive detailed evaluation. However, the

way in which hand-screen printing was utilized by a

number of firms can be seen as a response to calls

from reformers to 'improve' design. Hand-screen

printing was ideally suited to the designs of indi-

viduals with little or no experience of designing for

industry, such as craftworkers and fine artists. While

these factors may well have provided an 'improving

prospect' for some who wished to experience the

flexibility of free-lance work, the extent to which one

could earn an adequate living from such employ-

ment is more difficult to gauge. Although it would

appear that hand-screen printing and free-lance

design provided women with an important oppor-

tunity to design for industry, it may be that industry

was the chief benefactor. Textile firms who wished to

be counted amongst design reformers, who wanted

to benefit from low-risk investment in new designs,

and who saw an economic means of responding

quickly to changing consumer demands had much to

gain from the free-lance designer.

CHRISTINE BOYDELL

University of Central Lancashire

Notes

1 R. D. Simpson, 'Textile design', Journal of Careers,

February 1935, p. 89.

2 N. Pevsner, 'The designer in industry. 2. Furnishing

textiles', Architectural Review, vol. 79, 1936, p. 2921.

(During the research for this piece Pevsner was

employed as a buyer for the London showroom of

Gordon Russell Limited where he worked from 1935 to

1939; the shop was particularly successful as a retailer

of modern furnishing fabrics.)

3 Ernest Goodale reported that it cost ?100oo to engrave

each copper roller, and that in order to obtain a return

on their outlay manufacturers had to print at least 5000

yards of fabric. E. Goodale, 'Design and manufacturer',

Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, 4 April 1941, p. 286.

4 Captain W. Turnbull, 'The scope for the textile industry

as a user of designs', Journal of Careers, February 1935,

p. 91.

5 Ibid.

6 British Institute of Industrial Art for the Committee on

Industry and Trade Report, Factors in Industrial and

Commercial Efficiency (Balfour Report), 1927, p. 344.

7 Pevsner, op. cit., p. 291.

8 There is little information available as to the numbers

of designers employed at any one time during this

period; however, it is thought that Sandersons

employed two people in the textile design studio, but

between ten and fifteen in the wallpaper section,

during the 1920s and 1930s; at G. P. & J. Baker two

designers were employed at the beginning of the cen-

tury although during the 1920s and 1930s the situation

is unclear.

9 Pevsner, op. cit., p. 292. (Pevsner does not tell us

directly who 'the three most progressive manufacturers

of furnishing fabrics' were, but at the end of the article

he mentions Sir Frank Warner of Warner & Sons, Dr

James Morton of Morton Sundour, and David and

Frank Donald of Donald Brothers as 'initiators of the

Modern Movement in the English textile industry', the

implication being that they headed the most progres-

sive manufacturers of the day.)




10 Board of Education, Design and the Cotton Industry,

HMSO, 1929, p. 6.

i A. Walton, 'Furnishing textiles', Journal of the Royal

Society of Arts, 4 January 1935, p. 168.

12 Pevsner, op. cit., p. 292.

13 M. Rena, 'How textiles are made', The Studio, vol. 113,

1937, p. 92.

14 Ibid., p. 94.

15 K. Murray, 'The designer in industry: what is the

prospect?', Journal of Careers, January 1935, p. 23.

i6 Ibid.

17 Board of Education, op. cit., p. 11.

i8 Ibid., p. 4.

19 S. Wainwright, 'Modern printed fabrics', The Studio,

vol. 92, 1926, p. 398.

20 J. A. Milne, 'The artist in the textile industry', Journal of

the Textile Institute, vol. XXIX, no. 6, 1934, p. 127.

21 A. Hunter, 'The craftsman and design in the textile

industry', Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, 12 March

1948, p. 229.

22 E. Goodale, 'British and foreign upholstery fabrics:

anomalies of the present situation', Cabinet Maker and

Complete House Furnisher, 25 June 1938, p. 453.

23 Ibid.

24 These figures are based on a study of the Dartford Print

Record Books which list names of the block or screen

printed designs produced (often included is a black and

white photograph of the design), date of production,

name of designer, a block or screen number as well as

the number of screens or blocks used in the design, the

price paid for the design, and the date the block or

screen was destroyed. Also consulted were the

Cretonne Design Books which include names of

designs, designers, dates, and prices paid for roller

print designs.

25 Albums of designs bought by Heals from a variety of

textile manufacturers are available in the Victoria &

Albert Museum's Archive of Art and Design, AAD

2/1978.

26 H. G. Hayes Marshall, British Textile Designers Today,

F. Lewis, Leigh-on-Sea, 1939.

27 A. Callen, 'Sexual division of labour in the Arts and

Crafts Movement', in J. Attfield and P. Kirkham (eds),

View From the Interior: Feminism, Women and Design, The

Women's Press, 1989.

28 M. Schoeser, Marianne Straub, The Design Council,

1984.

29 E. Lord, 'Eileen Hunter: textile designer', unpublished

B.Sc.(Hons) Textile Design thesis, Huddersfield Poly-

technic, 1984.

30 Minimum quantities for hand-block and hand-screen

prints were considered to be between twenty and thirty

yards, i.e. the length of the printing table.

31 Lord, op. cit.

32 C. Boydell, 'Women textile designers in the 1920S and

1930s: Marion Dorn, a case study', in A View From the

Interior, op. cit.

33 Hayes Marshall, op. cit.

34 Archives of the following companies were studied:

Warner Fabrics, Sandersons, G. P. & J. Baker, Edin-

burgh Weavers, Donald Brothers.

35 Warner Fabrics Archive: Dartford Print Record Books

and the Cretonne Design Books.

36 The highest prices paid were determined by the com-

plexity of the design as well as the reputation of the

designer.

37 A. Hunt, 'The artist and the machine', Decoration in the

English Home, January-March 1938, p. 30.

38 Turnbull, op. cit., p. 94.

39 R. D. Simpson, op. cit., p. 89.

40 M. Farr, Design in British Industry: A Mid-Century

Survey, Cambridge University Press, 1955, p. 81.

41 My thanks to Alison Wylie (Warner Fabrics) for this

information.




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